Surprise! You May Be A Fashion Insider

There’s a new fashion trend that’s so inside, one must go to great effort to look like they’ve gone to no effort. It even has a name. Normcore.

You may have the “it” look and not even know it. Isn’t that the very essence of cool? The marks of Normcore is a wholly nondescript wardrobe. Apparently Normcore fashionistas make a concerted effort to appear as though they haven’t gone to great effort to select tee shirts, jeans, jackets, belts, and shoes that come together to look both brand agnostic and nondescript.

But Normcore does require brand choices in pursuit of the goal of looking nonbranded. Some staple sources of Normcore are
American Apparel, a brand founded based on selling anti-sweat shop, fair wage basics made in the US of A (downtown LA), GAP and J. Crew. An emerging player in Normcore is a San Francisco-based online retailer, Everlane.

日本語: AA Factory (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I purchased some basics from Everlane a few months ago, not as an embrace of Normcore but rather because I have some friends so true they suggested it was time to get shopping…the same kind of friends who tell you when you have cilantro in your teeth. The Everlane online shopping experience was pleasant in that merchandise was both well presented and not overwhelming in quantity. I ordered several basics including a “Slouchy Pocket Tee Heather Grey,” a “Women’s V Fog,” a “U-Neck Slate,” and a “Rounded Dusk” blouse. The merchandise arrived in thoughtfully minimalistic brown craft-paper packaging. Quite a lovely change from the usual online packaging I receive. I know now my entire order could be cast as Normcore.

Everlane’s tagline and mantra is “radical transparency.” In the area of apparel, everyone is looking for a point of difference and I assumed “radical transparency” was the catchphrase Everlane chose for some good reason I chose not to ponder. But realizing I might accidentally be part of a fashion movement, “radical transparency” was probably a term I should understand. At first blush it seemed unpleasantly extremely…something I fear my physician might diagnose after a follow-up exam.

According to Everlane’s website, “Radical Transparency” translates to “Know your factories; Know your costs; Always ask why.” Like American Apparel and many companies outside of fashion including Chipotle, Whole Foods, and
Starbucks, corporate practices like fair wages, sustainable sourcing, clean labels and green transportation are important to their consumers. The information these companies share about their practices varies in content and depth.

Chipotle is transparent in that they tell their consumers that “whenever possible” they use meat from animals raised without antibiotics of added hormones. No absolutes. The consistently long line of burrito buyers seem content with Chipotle’s qualified pledge. They trust Chipotle’s judgment in making tough choices to balance optimal sources, adequate inventory and delivering an acceptable price point, assuming you consider an $8 burrito acceptable.

Chipotle Salad :) (Photo credit: Mike Saechang)

Everlane’s position is more absolute, which likely explains the word choice of “radical” transparency. One assumes that Everlane’s customers seek a deeper understanding of how items like my Slouchy Pocket Tee in Heather Grey came to be.

So their consumers can be better informed, Everlane’s website features a world map highlighting the nine factories from which they source their merchandise, including the number of employees, time and weather at each. For example, Everlane scarves are made in Hawick Scotland. When I looked at the website, Hawick was partly cloudy, 60°, at 2:47pm, where 521 employees presumably whistled while working on Everlane scarves. I suppose regional weather, local time and number of employees were elements of transparency but they seemed neither “radical” nor relevant to me. I obviously wasn’t their target audience…but I had a tough time imagining the most devoted fashionista or even LOHAS types caring about those facts either.

Everlane manufactures products domestically as well. Their canvas bags come from
El Paso, where it was 101° degrees (let’s hope that’s a dry heat) at 7:45pm when I checked. The 100% cotton duck material used to make those bags is sourced from New Jersey. (It is interesting to note that New Jersey’s economy is diverse enough to have produced everything from cotton canvas to Bruce Springsteen to the Sopranos storyline. Thank you New Jersey.)

The cashmere factory is located in Dongguan, China. When I last looked, the weather was 84° degrees and rainy at 11:34 am. Per the website, that particular factory is a joint venture between a man named Mr. Chu and his long-term business partner, Mr. Lee. Someone from Everlane (apparently the writer of the website post) spent two days touring a variety of spinning, dyeing, and knitting facilities in the region with both Mr. Chu and Mr. Lee. Apparently manufacturing cashmere is “as much art as science.” Nice to know I suppose but again, this information felt neither “radical” nor relevant. I couldn’t tell from the description if all cashmere was made in this manner or if there was something proprietary to Mr. Chu and Mr. Lee’s method.

Interestingly, Everlane’s PK factory is in Dongguan, China as well, where (naturally) the weather and time are the same as the cashmere factory. There I found some inside information that other apparel companies might not share. Apparently Everlane was unhappy with their PK last year and after “examination of consumer feedback” moved their production to the Dongguan facility (from an unnamed first factory). Here was transparency but apparently I’m a fashion dunce because I don’t know what “PK” means. This piece of information could arguably be “radical” in that other apparel retailers might not share it but it failed my personal relevancy test because of my PK ignorance. Sure, I could do some digging to figure it out but I’ve gone for a very long without PK knowledge and it’s not high on my “to do” list now.

If effective marketing means providing product information that’s meaningful and motivating to their consumers, I’m clearly not Everlane’s target market. Consumers are more cynical than ever...that’s a fact. A true yet opposing fact is that consumers are overwhelmed by too much unfiltered information. Everlane apparently hopes to combat in-going lack of trust with transparency. But marketers must be judicious with what they choose to share and how that information is communicated. The standard must be target relevance. Over-sharing information that is not important to potential customers can leave them feeling overwhelmed and misunderstood--worse than sharing no information at all.